One Smart Cookie
by hotchityhotchhotch
Summary: Oneshot. A very special fortune cookie falls into Emily's hands. Team with Hotch/Prentiss theme. Seaver's here - if you are stuck on hating her, then don't read, and I won't take offense. COMPLETE.


**A/N: Oneshot for reviewer #600 of All This Time, CrimStudent47 (I will get to all of these, I swear. Maybe not in order, but eventually!). Prompt: fortune cookie. **

**I've toyed back and forth with finally writing Seaver into a fic. Any apprehension isn't due to disliking the character, only due to a lack of understanding (so far) of CM with her instead of JJ. The last couple of episodes, she's been pretty awesome, and SussiRay caved and wrote her in (smut, no less!) so I went for it. I hope everyone likes it! It's not Seaver-centric, but H/P-centric.**

"Kung Pao chicken for…Emily?" Garcia asked, holding out a Styrofoam container.

"Ooh, yes," Emily said, practically salivating. The entire team was gathered in the round table room for lunch together, an indulgence in which they rarely had the time to partake.

"Sweet and sour chicken?" Rossi, Hotch, and Reid raised their hands and accepted their lunch from Garcia

"And pork lo mein for the rest of us," She said with a smile, passing the rest to Seaver and Morgan, leaving one for herself.

"I think this is the first thing I've eaten since lunch yesterday," Emily marveled with her mouth full of food. She gave Hotch a dirty look when he gave her an odd one for talking with her mouth full. Then she secretly linked her left hand with his right hand underneath the table.

"You should really eat more," Reid said to Emily as he dug into his own lunch.

"Hey Reid, do you know what _winning_ is?" Seaver asked from across the table. Even Hotch arched a knowing eyebrow, and he was hardly ever up on pop culture references.

"_Winning_?"

"No? Then you should _get out_ more," Seaver said. She smiled brightly at Emily, her mentor of sorts, who sat next to her, and gave her a fist bump. Everyone chuckled.

"Winning? I take it it means something other than the opposite of losing?" Reid asked, now oblivious to everything except the fact that he was being teased.

"It's what Morgan does," Hotch said with a trace of a smile.

"Every day, man, every day," Morgan said, flashing his pearly whites.

"I really don't enjoy when you guys do this to me, you know," Reid said.

Emily shoved another forkful of chicken into her mouth and held her plastic fork in the air pointedly. "And I really don't like when you comment on my lifestyle, however unhealthy it may be."

"All I said was that you should eat more. Would you rather I say you should eat _less_?"

Emily's round eyes went narrow and everyone else focused on them. "Are you saying I'm _fat_?"

Everyone's attention turned toward Reid now, whose mouth formed a nice big _O_, and not in a good way. "I—"

"Oooh," Morgan started, a deep laugh coming from his stomach.

"Never comment on a lady's weight, kid. Trust me, I've learned the hard way three times. If they ever say, _Does this dress make me look fat?_ the answer is always no," Rossi said, shaking his head.

"I didn't comment on her _weight_, and I—"

"You just did," Seaver pointed out.

"Did what?" Reid asked helplessly.

"Commented on her weight," Hotch joined in, frowning quite naturally.

"But I said I _didn't_ comment on her weight."

"And thereby commented on it," Garcia said, drawing a circle in the air with her fork, then jabbing it in his direction.

Reid's eyes rolled back into his head as he analyzed his last few sentences.

"Your guys' logic is…well, not circular, but just nonsensical. I can't say that I didn't comment on Emily's weight without thereby commenting on her weight just by saying I didn't comment on it? That makes…no sense."

In a priceless moment, every single person on the team (save for Reid) was on the exact same page. They all gave him blank stares as he looked around.

"Do you have any idea what he's talking about?" Emily asked Hotch out of the corner of her lips, but loudly enough for everyone to hear.

"Not a clue," he replied. He took the lead and went back to eating. Everyone but Reid followed suit.

"Just because I'm younger than all of you—" Reid started.

Emily and Garcia gasped and wore mischievous smiles, looking at Seaver, who dusted off her hands and crossed her arms. She cocked an eyebrow at Reid, who quickly realized his mistake.

"I'm _so_ sorry, Ashley." He hadn't looked this frightened since he'd last had to aim his gun at an unsub.

"You weren't lying when you said he's easy to pick on," Seaver said to Emily.

"Told you," Emily said matter-of-factly, and just like that, everyone got back to their lunch, Reid a little dejectedly so. Seaver was only younger than Reid by a few days, but Morgan made a point of reminding Reid quite frequently that there was a new baby profiler in town. Reid felt silly for letting that fact slip his mind, especially when he knew countless books by heart.

"Fortune cookies! I left them in my car! Be right back!" Garcia explained after a few minutes of mindless chatter and shoveling of food into mouths. She frolicked back in a few minutes later with a plastic bag full of fortune cookies and walked around the table, dropping one wrapped cookie in front of each of her teammates. Only Seaver saw her grab a specific one from her pocket just for Emily as she stood behind her and Hotch.

"Fortune cookies are ridiculous," Reid said.

"Read yours," Emily said as she tore open her own wrapper.

"Why?"

"It's like a rule or something," Garcia said, waving a hand at him. "You have to."

Reid rolled his eyes minutely and broke apart his cookie. He unfurled the tiny piece of paper and read, "You will find happiness in the words of others."

"Bingo," Rossi mumbled.

"What about your lucky numbers?" Garcia asked.

"four, seven, and twenty-nine."

"The age you finished Moby Dick, the age you wrote your on first novel, and the age you saw your first R-rated movie?" Morgan cracked.

"Very funny," Reid said dryly. "Someone else has to go now."

"Curiosity kills boredom. But nothing can kill curiosity. What is this shit?" Rossi said, tossing his fortune onto the table while everyone laughed.

"Lucky numbers?" Hotch asked with a grin.

"I make my own luck," Rossi said.

Garcia blew a raspberry. "You are a fun-sucker. Emily, what does yours say?"

Emily hadn't even broken open her cookie yet. She felt Hotch's finger brush against her thigh while she opened up the paper. "Your future is at your right hand. Okay, I'm with Rossi," she said, dropping the piece of paper. "What on earth is that supposed to mean?"

"Sometimes fortunes don't make sense in the context in which you read them," Garcia said, casting a sidelong glance to Seaver.

"Yeah. Sometimes when you think about them later, they just…pop. Or something," Seaver said.

"Whatever," Emily mumbled. "Someone else go. I hope someone has a dirty one, or one that's misspelled. Those are my favorite."

"Aww, what abut your lucky numbers?" Garcia whined.

Emily scrunched her nose. "Who really believes in these things?"

"Nobody. That's why they're fun," Morgan said, unwittingly helping out Garcia and Seaver with their scheme.

Emily's eyebrows twitched and she snatched the fortune up again. "One, four, and…ten. Huh." She felt a blush creep up her cheeks.

"Well, those dates obviously mean something," Morgan said cockily. "Spill."

"No profiling," Emily said sternly, pointing a finger at him.

"You're red as a tomato. It's not profiling."

"Is it a special date?" Seaver asked.

"No," Emily said as nonchalantly as possible, but the skeptical looks from Morgan, Rossi, Seaver, and Garcia (Reid sat this one out, and Hotch was situated a few inches behind her so she couldn't see his face) compelled her to say, "Yes, fine."

"What makes the date significant?" Reid asked.

"It's the uh, birthday of a baby of a friend of mine. Morgan, what's your fortune?"

"My gorgeous teeth and my six-pack, baby."

Emily made a disgusted face and waited for someone else—anyone else—to read their fortune.

—

"She's not going to pick up on it," Hotch said resignedly from behind his desk. Garcia and Seaver sat in his visitors' chairs.

"She's smart. She'll get it. And if not, it's not like she'll never open her right hand desk drawer ever again."

"Well the whole fortune cookie thing will be lost if she just randomly finds it," Hotch said, uncharacteristically shaken.

"I'll text her. She's sitting at her desk right now." Garcia took out her phone and read as she typed. "Hey, have you thought about your fortune again? So freaky how those numbers were your and Hotch's anniversary…they were, right?"

Seaver beamed, obviously appreciative of Garcia and Emily having had let her in on the juiciest scandal at the BAU not long after she'd been recruited. "I can't believe none of the guys know."

"More importantly, I can't believe Strauss doesn't know," Garcia said.

"Well, if Emily gives me good news, then Strauss will have to find out sooner or later, and it's likely going to be goodbye to one of us. Most likely me."

Garcia pouted. "Just tell me she's worth it."

Hotch smirked. "She is."

Downstairs, Emily leaned back in her chair and groaned, her stomach gurgling in protest of the overload of MSG. She read Garcia's text message and rolled her eyes. The numbers had just been a coincidence. One that had almost made her blow her and Hotch's cover, but a coincidence all the same. She had no idea why Garcia was harping on the fortune. But she knew Garcia loved the stuff, so she humored her and typed, "My future isn't at my right hand, PG. The only thing that's at my right hand is my desk drawer, and all that's in there is makeup and a receipt for a jacket I bought four months ago and still haven't worn because of buyer's remorse. But yes, right date."

Garcia's phone vibrated. "Ooh! She texted back. Oh, what a Debbie Downer, seriously," she said, reading the message aloud to Seaver and Hotch. She typed and read, "Party pooper." She and Seaver walked over to Hotch's window that overlooked the bullpen.

Sighing, Emily (having no idea that Seaver and Garcia were up in Hotch's office and were now peering through a crack in his closed blinds, directly at her) opened her right hand desk drawer.

"Hotch, Hotch!" Garcia hissed, waving her arm. "She's opening the drawer!"

Hotch's heart stopped. It had been beating somewhat erratically ever since he'd planted the box in Emily's desk before lunch. His palms sweated as he stood between Garcia and Seaver to catch a glimpse of Emily's face.

Emily rolled her eyes as she slid open her desk drawer. She tossed a compact mirror and a lipstick out of the way, wondering if she could think of anything wise to say to Garcia to make her happy. Her thumb brushed against a black velvet box she hadn't even noticed, even though it was right in front of her. Her eyes widened.

"Oh my gosh. She found it!" Garcia almost squealed to Hotch.

"Shhhh!" He held a finger to his lips and tried not to smile.

"You're allowed to be excited, Hotch," Garcia chided. He humored her (and himself) and let a smile spread naturally across his face. "That's more like it."

"She still hasn't opened it," he said after a few seconds of watching Emily stare in shock into her desk drawer.

"Oh, she knows what's in it," Seaver said with certainty. "She's not dumb. And any girl would know anyway. But I really hope she opens it soon. I wanna see the 'look at the size of that rock' look."

"You don't think we went too big, did we?" Hotch asked, worried again.

"No such thing," Garcia said dismissively.

Meanwhile, Emily's mouth went bone dry and her vision went wavy for a moment. She held a hand to her chest and, oblivious to everything that was going on behind Hotch's blinds (even though now the gap had grown wider and three sets of eyes could be seen easily by anyone who looked up that way), rolled the little box between her fingers.

"What's that?" Reid asked from a couple of feet away.

"Nothing," Emily said hastily, tossing the box back into her desk drawer and shutting it.

"_Okay_."

"For Pete's sake, Reid!" Garcia grumbled. "Go read a book or something."

Hotch sighed and walked back to his desk. "She's not going to open it while Reid's around."

"Hey, she's texting someone," Seaver said. Not twenty seconds later, Hotch's phone buzzed on his desk.

"Is it Emily?" Garcia asked, hurrying back over to Hotch's desk, Seaver right behind her.

"Yeah." Hotch read over the text silently first, then out loud to the ladies. "'_Are you proposing to me using a fortune cookie?' _Exclamation point, question mark, exclamation point, question mark," Hotch said. He chuckled and handed the phone over to Garcia, who looked like she might pass out if she didn't get to read it for herself. All of them seemed to agree without words that Emily's message had an amused tone, not an angry one.

"What're you going to do?" Seaver asked.

"I…don't know. I guess wait until after work and see if she says anything." He ignored the appalled looks on Seaver's and Garcia's faces.

"You can_not_ leave the ball in her court like that. Grow. A. Pair," Garcia said firmly. "At least text her back something. Better yet, call her. Or go down there."

"The whole point of the fortune cookie thing was to be covert, but…how did you put it?" he said to Garcia.

"Insanely romantic and cute," she replied. "Fine, don't go downstairs and talk to her, but call her. Do _something_. We're dying here. You do know it's all about us, don't you?" she stuck her bright pink lip out at him. "_Please_?"

Hotch rolled his eyes and pulled up Emily on speed dial. "What do I say?"

"You'll think of something," Seaver said.

Emily saw Hotch's face pop up on her caller ID. His badge ID photo never failed to make her smile inside, even if she couldn't show it on the outside. He rarely smiled like that anymore, at least not for anyone but her. "Prentiss," she answered, licking her lips.

"Hey," his smooth voice rolled back to her with surprising confidence.

"Hi," she said sheepishly.

"So, uh—what did your fortune read again?"

"Your future is at your right hand," Emily played along, a smile overtaking her, try as she might to remain neutral. Without announcing it, she made sure Reid wasn't looking and took the velvet cube out of her drawer again. She popped it open and gulped at the sight of the gargantuan princess cut diamond before sliding the ring onto her left ring finger. Her eyes stung a little with impending tears.

"Do you…think your fortune was right?" Hotch ventured.

"No," Emily said.

Hotch's confusion was written all over his face. He held up a finger to the curious ladies who had been listening in on the entire conversation. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I'm thinking my _left_ hand."

**A/N: Reviews are love! If you hate the story just because of Seaver, please do **_**not**_** let me know. She's growing on me, and while I understand she's not growing on everyone, I get enough of that on Twitter and tumblr. **


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